1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to programming development environments performed by computers, and in particular, to a method and apparatus for remotely scripting local objects in a network server.
2. Description of Related Art
With the fast growing popularity of the Internet and Intranets, especially Web-based networks, there is also a fast growing demand for Internet and Intranet access to databases. Web-based networks operate using the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and the HyperText Markup Language (HTML). HTTP is the protocol used by Web clients and Web servers to communicate between themselves using these hyperlinks. HTML is the language used by Web servers to create and connect together documents that contain these hyperlinks. This protocol and language results in the communication and display of graphical information that incorporates hyperlinks. Hyperlinks are network addresses that are embedded in a word, phrase, icon or picture that are activated when the user selects a highlighted item displayed in the graphical information.
The Internet has considerable potential to provide access to powerful and complex applications implemented at the Web server to a broad scope of remote clients. This implementation has important benefits such as reducing computer memory and processing requirements at the remote client, and increasing the security of the application by retaining selected portions of the application in a secure location in the Web server. However, such implemetations can be communication intensive, and communication bandwidth and latency is already a problem, even for simple Internet applications. What is needed is a method of implementing Internet applications that provides the application developer the flexibility to allocate functional capability between the remote client and the Web server so as to meet the security, remote client processing and communication link requirements for the particular application. The present invention satisfies that need.